The Marketplace, by John
by JCoops
Summary: The second chapter in John Trader's saga. complete with new editor, which isn't me, to ensure that it does not have the ridiculous plot holes and grammatical mistakes of the past story. Its still nasty old Fallout Fiction though.


**As I understand it, there were numerous errors with the storyline of Drainage and I would not be happy continuing with it. So instead, I have taken a few months out, and beginning fresh, with Drainage, part two. At the bottom of this chapter will be a catch up of previous events, told how I want them to be told. So, I present Drainage II…**

**Marketplace**

Two boys were fighting. Jared had been holding hands with Minella the night before and as Darius' honour had been slighted, blood had to be spilt. They circled each other in the Ball Court; empty now that the game had finished. Blood from the previous game still stained the playing field, making it look a coppery colour. The blood would be swept away that night by Court attendants, but so much had been shed over the years, that there was always an acrid smell of rusty metal in the air, whenever people entered.

Jared leapt forward, this would be the point that the adrenaline would begin pumping in the crowd, because they would know that a big hit was about to go down. However, the Ball Court was deserted now, save for these two and one attendant, Riger, who had let them in to settle their honour. Jared right fist shot towards Darius' face, but the attacker did not have Darius' speed and the blow was easily knocked aside by the back of his right hand, in a sweeping motion. This overbalanced Jared, who stumbled forward, having led with his right leg, and overstretched, he now had to bring his left forward to steady himself. Darius saw this coming, and swiped in a low roundhouse kick with his left foot, so that it swept away Jared's advancing left leg and he collapsed, totally overbalanced. As Jared began to fall to his right, Darius left his left leg hanging in the air on his right side, brought his left hand up, caught Jared in the throat, and drove his neck into the ground, swinging his left leg back onto the floor to help propel the blow. Jared's body slammed against the floor. Darius drove his right fist into Jared's sternum, which caused him to buck upwards gasping for air. As Jared's head came off the floor, Darius thrust his right elbow into the bottom of Jared's nose, making it explode in blood and gore. Throughout, neither boy had made more sound than grunts of pain. The fight had lasted around 6 seconds, from the time they circled, to the time Darius hammered Jared with his elbow.

"End," was all the Riger said: Darius snarled and moved away. He moved with a dangerous precision, and though he did not possess the strength of the larger boy, it was obvious he had superior fighting skill.

"Don't go near her."

Jared spluttered, coughed blood out of his mouth and rolled over. Riger advanced towards him, to clean him up and to repair any damage done to him. As he passed Darius, he tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, "Well done." It was not much, but Darius' chest filled with pride. Riger had taught him how to fight for years and now he was 17, he could finally compete in the Ball Court. He couldn't wait to tell his father. Razor would probably be unhappy that Darius had been fighting, but he would still no longer be able to deny Darius a place on his team.

Darius left Riger tending to Jared and moved towards the water pale, dousing his face in the cool liquid. The water which trickled down in a river from the mountains was the reason why Marketplace had been founded in the first place. Nobody knew why it was pure and free of taint and many times young men with hot heads had gone on an expedition up into the mountains to find out. As of yet, Darius could name none that had come back alive. Needless to say, the water was a major security priority, and the Ball Court was one of the few places that had direct access to it. It had meant that a cool flow of pure water was easily accessible to all participants in the arena.

After taking his fill of water, Darius exited the Ball Court and made his way down the wide thoroughfare towards his house. As his father, Razor, captained one of the major Ball Court teams in Marketplace, they had quite a prestigious house, rivalling some of the lesser merchant's abodes. He tried to creep to his room, but his father must have heard his footsteps. Before he could get into bed, Razor had opened the door to his room.

"Darius."

"Yes father?"

"Where have you been?" Darius had learnt the hard way that it was never worth lying to his father, who always ended up finding out in the end.

"I have been at the Ball Court. Fighting Jared."

"Over Minella?"

"Yes." His father nodded, knowingly. The practice of honour duelling was frowned upon socially, but every boy had fought at least once, mainly about a girl.

"Did you win?"

"Riger was there. Jared didn't even touch me." Darius grinned.

"You took a tutor along. A wise move boy. I will speak with him tomorrow. I suppose this means that you will be wanting to get on the team next week?"

"Yes Father." This time, Razor grinned.

"Your mother is going to adore me. Get some rest. We'll discuss this further tomorrow."

With that, Razor shut the door and left Darius alone in his room. He could hardly contain himself. His father was something of a celebrity, one of the most senior combatants in the Ball Court. Whilst it was hardly unheard of for father's to take on their sons, it was a suitably rare occurrence to merit a celebration when the news was spread tomorrow. He couldn't wait to start training with his father's team. Razor, Solid, Damien, Caracas, Tiber and Brian were, in Darius' opinion, the best team in the whole of the region. Many different participants came from all over the Wasteland to participate in the Ball Court, it was one of the few things that still lingered from the past Civilisation. Riger knew more about its origins than Darius did, but he knew enough to know that it had been around even before his grandfather had been a boy, almost 60 years ago. Content that he had fulfilled all of his dreams, Darius slept soundly.

Elsewhere, in the nocturnal Wasteland, not everybody was having such a good nights sleep. A hooded figure staggered up the crest of a hill, gunshots ricocheting of the rocks around. One ricochet hit his leg, embedding itself in the meat of his calf. He cried out and dove behind the nearest outcrop of rocks. Bullets continued to ping against the rock and the hooded figure knew that he would be dead very quickly if he didn't find a way out. He peaked around the rock, and caught a glance of his attackers. Four raiders, dressed in varying rags of leather and metal; which seemed to be wielded haphazardly together. They all carried hunting rifles and each raider had a variety of different knives hanging from his body. Two of them were continuing to pepper his position, kneeling to gain a more accurate shot. The other two had spread off to the right, intent on flanking him. Whilst he was pinned, he couldn't run away from the rock. In short, he was fucked. In return for his peaking round the rock, the raiders' fire intensified. One of the bullets hit loose rocks close to his face, and a few of them sprang at the figure, cutting the skin on his cheek and above his brow. Blood began to spill from the wounds and the figure pulled back against the rock.

The figure looked around for something to use. He had a beaten up revolver, with only a couple of bullets left. He had had a hunting rifle, but he had lost that whilst being pursued. A couple of grams of Kite were also in his possession, but he didn't think this the time or the place to use them. As he was searching for his knife, a long blade used for chopping down trees, (and chopping down limbs when necessary) he dropped the few pieces of metal which passed for the local currency in this region. Whilst he was scrabbling around trying to pick them up again, he noticed that the rock was loose at the bottom. Evidently, this rock wasn't part of the hill, it had been thrown here, or moved by some natural, but more likely, nuclear force. A plan began to formulate in his head.

He was off to one side of the road which ran up the hill. On the other side of the road, the two raiders were making their way round to kill him. The road was littered with cars, but the two raiders at the bottom of the hill were preventing him from getting to the cover they provided. Though loathed to throw away his only viable source of protection, there was no other option. Except death and the figure was not in the mood for that at the moment.

Digging his fingers underneath the rock, he heaved upwards with all the strength that he could muster. The rock at first refused to budge, but then very quickly gave way. Gravity did the rest, most efficiently. The rock tumbled down the hill towards the raiders. One of the raiders was too stunned to get out of the way, and the falling boulders smashed straight into him, crushing him instantly. The second raider dived out of the way, but was disorientated long enough for the figure to get in between the cars. The two flanking raiders had gotten a clear shot on him, but they were so transfixed by the falling boulder, they couldn't capitalise on the situation.

Safe, for the moment, in between the piled up cars on the road, the figure reassessed his options. The two raiders had begun to slowly advance on the pile up of cars, where the figure was on the opposite side of to them. They could see him, and had taken a few pot-shots in his direction, but the metal framework of the numerous cars meant that it was very difficult to pull off an accurate shot. Though the pings still sent up enough sparks to put the figure on edge. That way was clearly blocked. He looked the other way. The other raider was struggling over his crushed comrade, evidently trying to coax life back into him. The raider who was lying over him could now be identified as female, and so it was obvious there was some type of connection between them both.

Which meant the figure could use that to his advantage. Whilst she was preoccupied with her lover, the figure rushed as quietly as he could towards the fallen raider, his pistol drawn. When he was within fifteen feet of her, she realised he was there. Snatching up her rifle she raised it to her hip and fired. The round went wildly off target, missing the figure considerably. However, the figure hadn't counted on the rifle being semi-automatic. The second round scraped his left shoulder, knocking him off-balance. Her eyes went cold and she brought the rifle to her shoulder, aiming straight at the figures chest. However, now he was within ten feet of her and he spun forward using the momentum of the hit against his shoulder to throw his body to the right. It meant he moved very oddly, swinging low to his right side and the bullet passed through where his chest would have been. The figure hit the floor with his right shoulder, brought up the pistol and fired both shots square into her chest at point blank range. The excuse for armour that she was wearing did nothing to stop the heavy bullets, which passed straight through it, and entered her rib cage. She was flung backwards, landing on her lover in an oddly poetic gesture. However, this was lost on the figure who simply picked up the rifle and ran to the rock which had crushed the first raider. As he slid down, he noticed the last two raiders coming into view.

They hadn't seen him, because he had dived behind the rocks before they had had a chance to spot him. The rifle the hooded figure had in his hands had a strange cartridge about halfway up the barrel. It looked like an ancient rifle, something from before The War. He clicked a button and pulled the cartridge from the barrel. It seemed like there were only 4 bullets in that he could see. He pushed the cartridge back into the gun and peaked around the edge of the rock. Both of the raiders carried standard hunting rifles. One of the raiders, male, with the same ludicrous armour, was facing away from him, looking towards the cars, where the hooded figure had been situated less than a minute before. From the way that the female raider had fallen, it would look like she had been shot from that direction. The other figure, also male, was crouched over the dead raiders, inspecting their wounds. He was wearing some type of cape which made him look like a ridiculous pre-war superhero. The hooded figure decided he would die first.

He poked the rifle over the lip of the fallen rock and aimed down the barrel. He took a second to steady his aim and just as the raider began to look up; the hooded figure breathed out and pulled the trigger. The bullet entered straight into the raider's skull, not a difficult shot, as the man was only a couple of dozen feet away. His head flung backwards and he was dead even before he hit the floor. The second raider barely had time to turn around before the hooded figure put the rest of the cartridge of bullets into the raider's body. One of the bullets pinged off of the raider's armour, proving that it was partially effective, however, the other two bullets ripped straight though into his stomach and the left part of his chest.

Immediately, the hooded figure stood up and ran towards the group, drawing his knife as he did so. Although all three male raiders were dead, surprisingly, the female raider still lived. The hooded figure strode up to her, knelt and plunged the hilt of his knife into the female's neck, angled upwards so that the tip entered her brain, killing her instantly. He withdrew the knife, wiped it on her clothes and then put it back into his belt. He scrounged some ammunition from the now-dead raider, found another three cartridges of bullets, each with about ten rounds in. The crushed male raider also had a holster, with a 10mm pistol in it, and three clips of ammunition. The hooded figure took his robe off and slung the holster, with pistol, off of his right shoulder, so it dangled by his left waist. Taking some water off of another one of the raiders, and a packet of beef jerky off the final one, he decided nothing more could be scavenged from their corpses and decided to leave them be. He was about to tuck into the jerky, when he noticed a slight change in the light out of the corner of his eye.

Reflectively, the hooded figure raced towards the rock, sprinting as fast as he could and dived behind it. His heart, which had been hemped up on adrenaline, began beating even faster. The wounds in his shoulder and calf were pumping blood, but it hadn't started to hurt yet. It had only been two minutes since he was behind the rock at the top of the hill, and the pain hadn't kicked in yet. He tried to calm himself down, mostly failing. However, the rational part of his brain told him that the sniper could have shot him by now if he was going to. The hooded figure peered around the corner of the rock, attempting to identify the shooter. He again saw the flash of light glinting off of the scope, but also saw two men walking down the hill. They both carried rifle holstered over their back. The hooded figure took the rifle off of the sling behind his back, put the stock against his shoulder and began to walk forward slowly towards them, gulping in large amounts of oxygen.

As he got closer, one of them shouted over to him.

"Wow there soldier, lower your gun. We ain't here to kill you. Solid could have blown your brains out five minutes ago if he had wanted to. You run fast by the way and fight really well."

"…Thanks?"

The hooded figure slowly lowered his rifle, but kept the stock against his shoulder, in case he needed to bring the weapon up again quickly.

"They are all dead?"

"…Yeah. Why didn't you help out?"

"Not our job. We just patrol and report. If the raiders had entered Marketplace territory, we would have killed them, but this is no-mans land."

"Marketplace is near here?"

The two men had got close enough to hooded figure to make them out. They were both huge, muscled guys, more than six feet tall. The rifles on their back were neither the hunting rifles that the hooded figure was used to, nor were they the ancient rifle he had on his back. The stock was hollow, and the cartridge was curved. The barrel was also a lot shorter. They wore Brahmin skin trousers and some type of metal armour over their chests. One of the men extended his hand to the hooded figure.

"Yeah, marketplace is only a couple of hours walk from here. We'll take you there. My name is Damien, that's Tiber."

The hooded figure exhaled triumphantly, the week of hardship had finally ended and he was in Civilization again.

"Thank you very much. My name is John…Trader."

_**Catch up, for those who haven't read Drainage, By John… heathens**_

_John Trader, a naïve young man, has left his home village to explore the Wasteland, in an attempt to earn riches and to discover the fate of his drug- addicted brother, Noble._

_Along the way, he meets and picks up a motley crew of characters and meets a variety of factions. He comes to a small Tribal village and meets a seemingly virtuous organisation called the Niagara Knights, who have taken an interest in him. He also meets a strange Warrior Woman, called Silica, who wants to travel with him._

_However, just as life seems to be looking up for John, the village comes under numerous raids by a tribe known as Black Lotus. During the attacks, Trader is forced to see many of his friends die and the village is utterly devastated. However, a mysterious man called Adam Merchant, representing a shadowy group, known as The Librarians, injects John with a drug which causes him to go berserk, slaughtering many Black Lotus members. _

_He holds on to his sanity long enough to be told that he was "created" and the Black Lotus Tribals refer to him as the 'Son of Man', stating that their leader, "The Great Revear" ordered them to capture him._

_In the aftermath of the battle, the remnants of the village, led by their war chief, Stern, attack the Black Lotus encampment, and it is unknown how successful they were. Veracity, John's brother's ex-girlfriend, and current girlfriend of Dignity has been captured by Black Lotus, and is being held in some type of laboratory. _

_Valour, a young, sheltered boy has been recruited by the last surviving Niagara Knight, Richard Stockbridge. Dignity, a one legged, cynical outcast has been picked up by Adam, having been told ominously that he has "a proposition for him" _

_And so John has been left alone in the village, everyone he knew either Dead or Damned. He packs his belongings, and walks to the largest settlement in this area of the NY Wasteland, The Marketplace._


End file.
